Who We Are

An independent organization of leading scientists and journalists researching and reporting the facts about our changing climate and its impact on the public.

What We Do

Climate Central surveys and conducts scientific research on climate change and informs the public of key findings. Our scientists publish and our journalists report on climate science, energy, sea level rise. Read More

About Our Expertise

Members of the Climate Central staff and board are among the most respected leaders in climate science. Staff members are authorities in communicating climate and weather links, sea level rise, climate. Read More

Amazon Deforestation

Published: January 28th, 2009

The recognized authority for satellite observations of Amazon deforestation is the Brazilian Space Research Institute (Portuguese acronym, INPE). This organization has been monitoring Amazon deforestation since 1988. Currently, INPE publishes monthly reports (for example, see the August 2009 [PDF] report in Portuguese) describing the latest satellite data and deforestation rates estimated from them. The area shown here is in the southern part of Mato Grosso, which had the highest deforestation rate among all Brazilian states between 2001 and 2005 (and subsequently surpassed by Pará state [PDF] ). The images come from INPE, but were provided to Climate Central by Dr. Ruth DeFries (Columbia University) and Dr. Douglas Morton (University of Maryland).